Separation Anxiety
by abbyepic
Summary: Sequel to 'Hero Complex.' Once upon a time, Harry Potter walked away from Little Whinging and out of muggle Kate Foster's life. Now, five years later, Harry is leading an investigation into a new magical extremest group, and Kate just happens to be the key witness needed to unravel the whole thing. Protecting her is crucial - which is why she's moving in with him. Harry/OC
1. The Alley

_**Author's Note: So, here we go. The sequel to my first multichaptered fic is up! I would like to say thank you to all of the reviewers of Hero Complex and everyone who has added that story/me to their favorite story/story alert/author alert/ favorite author. It's a really wonderful feeling, to see that someone likes your stuff. Also, thanks to my wonderful new beta, MidsummerNightGirl, for catching all of the things that I would never see. **_

_**Just a note, for new readers: this is the sequel to my other fic, Hero Complex, which is about a muggle girl living in Little Whinging who somehow meddles her way into Harry Potter's life. I would recommend reading that story first, since there might be allusions made to it that aren't all that clearly.**_

_** I should also mention that this story will not be entirely epilogue compliant.  
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_**Here we go with chapter one. **_

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><p>"Please enjoy your lunch, sir," I said, smiling as I placed a plate of salad in front of a customer. He was a stocky middle-aged man in a business suit, with hair that looked like it might have once been brown and a pair of bifocal glasses. Despite the fact that his food looked absolutely delicious, he wrinkled his nose at it. I got the distinct impression that he hadn't ordered it because he wanted it; he looked like the sort who probably had to watch his cholesterol or blood pressure or something. I saw him give an envious look towards the customer at the next table, who was biting into a cheeseburger like it would be his last meal.<p>

"Thanks," he said as he picked up his fork and began to pick at a piece of lettuce. His salad looked good, and looking at it directly made my stomach rumble a little. If I had had the time, I would have loved to stop and get something to eat for lunch. Unfortunately, I was also sure that if I stopped and ate, I would miss my train. That would be completely unacceptable.

"And would you like a refill on your drink?" I asked, trying not to sound horribly rushed and to stop my foot from its constant tapping. Maybe I was too impatient to be a waitress, but this man as the last patient of the day for me and I was ready to leave.

"No thank you, I'm fine for now."

"I'm about to leave, but my relief is right over there," I told him, pointing across the restaurant to a young, round-faced blonde tying the strings of her apron. Out of all of my coworkers, she was my favorite, the only one who didn't seem to begrudge the fact that the restaurant owner would let me leave early, or that she would hold my job for me over the summer. "Her name is Gwen and she'll be over in just a minute to see if you need anything, okay?"

"Alright, thank you."

I smiled at him again and made my way over to the kitchen door. "Mrs. Carter? I'm going now." I began to untie my apron and hang it on the hook beside the door.

"Alright, Katie," said the restaurant's owner, sticking her head out of the kitchen window. She was a woman with short, curly gray hair and friendly blue eyes. She gave me a warm smile. "Have a good summer. We'll miss you, dear. Be sure to come visit if you come to London, alright?"

I had a bit of a teacher's pet relationship with my boss, but there were good reasons for that. Mrs. Carter was my Grandma Foster's best friend and was like an aunt to my father. She was adept at running a restaurant and was a genius in the kitchen. She had also owned the restaurant back when my mother was in school, and happened to introduce my mother, who had been working there as a waitress, and my father, who had dropped by the restaurant one day to drop off something for Gran. As such, I owed my very existence to Mrs. Carter and she looked on my siblings and I as the grandchildren her daughter never gave her.

I laughed a little. "Yes ma'am." I grabbed my handbag from a shelf of employee belongings under the window and slung it over my shoulder. "See you in August."

I left the restaurant after that, stepping out onto the London streets.

It seemed to me that my life was nearly everything that I could ask for. I went to school at King's College, like I had always fantasized about. I lived in London, which had always ranked highly on my list of favorite places in the world. My job was lovely and I made enough to be able to pay my part of the rent to the flat I shared with two of my closest friends. My roommates were Lizzie, my best friend from age eight, and Anne, a rather shy but sweet girl who had been Lizzie's roommate when she lived in student housing. And, whenever I got tired of staying in the city, I could go home to my parents' house in Little Whinging.

The building where I lived finally came into view, an old-fashioned structure made of red brick. I actually quite liked living there. Since it was a small complex (with four floors and sixteen flats), I had had the opportunity to meet all of my neighbors. They were all polite and none were really noisy. Our flat was located on the top floor and had a nice view of a nearby park. The hallways were always perfectly clean, the seventy-something-year-old lifts functioned very well, and any repairs needed were always quick. The building supervisor was sort of a pain, but it was worth it.

Looking at it, I felt the familiar emotions of being both sad to leave it and excited to be home.

I began to rummage through my handbag for my keys. With a shock, I realized that I couldn't find them. I started to search in each individual pocket of my bag, and then in the pocket of my jeans. No, they weren't there. Had I even grabbed them that morning before I left for work? I thought back and realized that the last time I had seen them had been at breakfast, when they had been idly tossed onto the small kitchen table. I couldn't remember picking them up.

This was definitely not a good thing, especially because no one would be home to let me in. Lizzie had a date with Noah, her boyfriend of four and a half years (also known as my ex); I recalled that they planned to go visit some museum or something like that and wouldn't be in all day. Anne wouldn't be there, either, because of her summer internship at an office. I wouldn't be able to get to my bags until someone got home to let me in.

_I could miss my train_, I thought suddenly. _God, Pen is going to be so pissed off at me. She'll think she cancelled her date with Eric or Kevin or whatever his name is for nothing…_ _Maybe I should call the landlord._

But I could hear the voice of the super in my head already. _"Do you know what we want in this building, Miss Foster? Reliable tenants. I'm sure your flat mates would be able to replace you, if you don't clean up your act…"_

I didn't want to listen to that. But, at the same time, I didn't want to call Lizzie on her date or Anne at work. I knew that they wouldn't have minded, but I hated to get in the way of Lizzie's romantic interactions or Anne's future job success.

"Perhaps I left them at the restaurant…" I muttered hopefully. It couldn't hurt to check, could it?

I turned on my heels, about to head back the way that I had come, but then I remembered the shortcut that began at a nearby alley and continued on a narrow street, which then connected to the alley beside the restaurant. It was so much shorter than going on the proper streets that I suddenly couldn't remember why I didn't use it all of the time.

It didn't take long for me to remember, though. As I came into view of the alley, two or three buildings away from the flat, I realized that the reason was that it was sort of shady. The two buildings it was wedged between were tall enough that a good bit of the alley was covered in shadows. The dumpster leaning against one side was brimming over with rubbish, which spilled out onto the ground, and there were puddles of some rather suspicious-looking liquid every few yards.

The proper word to describe that alley was "sinister."

I shook my head. I really didn't have enough time to be afraid of an alley, and besides, the neighborhood was perfectly safe. There were alleys like this in the safest neighborhoods in any city. And, in broad daylight, there wasn't much of a chance that I would get mugged.

With those facts providing a perfectly sound reasoning, I took my first steps into the restaurant. In all actuality, it wasn't really that bad. The puddles and the garbage were easily avoided, and I stayed as much in the sun as I possibly could. _Look, you were worried for nothing_, I reassured myself. _It's just a backstreet. There's no reason for you to be scared, Kate. _I felt sort of brave.

Or at least I did until I started to hear voices.

At first, they were faint and muffled; I thought that I must be imagining them. A few seconds later, however, I learned that that wasn't the case. The closer I came to the narrow street that lead to the alley beside the restaurant, the louder they became. I couldn't really tell what it was that they were saying from a distance, but I could tell by their tones that there was definitely something wrong. My breath caught in my chest.

Finally, I came to a bend in the road and the voices became intelligible. For whatever reason - a sixth sense about something, maybe - I didn't take the step around the corner. Instead, I plastered my body to a wall and tried to keep myself as still as possible.

All girls from Little Whinging knew how to eavesdrop. It was practically ingrained into our personalities.

"Please," a man's voice said; his voice told me that he was probably middle-aged, about as old as my dad. His pitch told me that he was terrified. "P-please don't k-kill me. I-I d-don't even k-know what I-I did w-wrong!"

I froze. They were going to kill him? _Oh my God, what do I do?_ I wondered in a panic. _They're going to kill him! What do I do what do I do what do I do…_

Did I try to step in and help the man? No, that seemed ridiculous; I couldn't do a thing against a murderer, especially since he or she was probably armed. Running for help probably wouldn't be any help at all, because I had never been a very fast runner and it would take about three minutes to get back the way I had come. The man could be dead by then.

_You have a phone; _a voice in my head reminded me. _Call the police!_

Of course; I had my mobile phone in my handbag. As quietly as possible, I unzipped my bag and began to search for my mobile. On some days, it was easy to find and seemed almost magnetically drawn to my fingertips. This was not one of those days, and every little sound that came as I rummaged through my handbag made me cringe. I finally pulled it out of my bag; it was a newer model phone, a sleek silver flip phone that I had had for all of three days.

Another voice was talking at the same time, this one female. "Oh, really?" she asked. Her voice was calm and airy to the point of frigidness. It made me instinctively want to shiver. "Are you certain that you don't know?"

I threw the phone's lid up and punched in the numbers "9-9-9." For a few horrible moments, it rang.

"I h-have four k-kids and a w-wife," the man implored. "Please d-don't kill m-me, they n-need m-me…"

"Why would they ever need scum like you?" the cold-voiced woman asked. "I can't imagine that you've ever done them much good. Not compared to all of the bad things that you've done."

_Someone pick up soon_, I begged silently.

The phone popped slightly as a woman's voice came out of the phone. "You have dialed 999 for emergency services. What is your emergency?"

She sounded sort of like my grandma.

"Um, hey," I whispered, probably sounding for all of (I think it'd read more smoothly if you deleted the 'of' and just left "all the world") the world like a child pulling a prank. "My name's Kate Foster and I think I'm about to witness a murder."

"Young lady," the emergency dispatcher said sternly. "This line is for real emergencies only."

"This is a real emergency!" I hissed fiercely into the mouth of my mobile. My voice quivered. "I was taking a shortcut through a backstreet and I heard voices and this man keeps saying 'Please don't kill me!' and it sounds like he's crying and there's a woman who keeps calling him worthless scum and she says that he's done something bad and there might be some more people but I'm too scared to look around the corner and check!"

The next time she spoke, the dispatcher sounded more businesslike. "What's your location?"

"I don't know the name of the street, but it's off of an alley off of Rainey Avenue and it's dark and spooky back here. I knew that I shouldn't have come this way but I just needed to go get my keys or I'm going to miss my train and then my sister will be pissed off at me and-" I was babbling hysterically; I had to stop and gulp for breath before I continued. "I'm really scared and I don't know what to do and I need help."

"Calm down, dear," the woman said. "I'm going to send the police your way, alright? I want you to stay on the phone with me. You've done the right thing. Please stay calm and still."

"Okay," I whispered into the phone. I felt tears begin to trickle down my cheeks, but as scared as I was, I really did believe that things were about to get better.

Or at least I did until I felt someone grab me roughly by the arm. I screamed aloud as the man jerked me towards him. My phone fell in the mud, the dispatcher woman's voice screeching over our connection.

I looked up at my assailant's face in absolute terror. He was unusually tall, probably in his mid-thirties, with large, muscular arms that told me he must spend a good bit of time in a gym somewhere. His shaggy hair, which was a muddy shade of brown, was beginning to get gray around the temples, and he had scraggly-looking beard. His clothes were strange; he was wearing a bright red cape with a hood, as if he was an unpleasant grown man version of Little Red Riding Hood. His dark eyes probed into mine.

He smiled a rather nasty smile as he dragged me around the corner. "Look what we have here," he said. His voice sounded like a villain on a Disney film. "A pretty little interloper," I shuddered and strained as I tried to pull away my arm, but I couldn't find the words to tell him to let me go.

"A muggle, from the looks of it," stated a figure from the far side of the street. It was a man, much shorter and leaner than the one who held onto me. He was also much younger. He looked like he could've been my age.

He was also beautiful, in the way that men aren't really supposed to be. If it weren't for his voice, I probably wouldn't have known that he was a man at all. His hair was worn in a shiny black ponytail that was at least shoulder length; I couldn't really tell, because he was also wearing a red hooded cape. His skin was very light, and his eyes were an amazing shade of cool blue that looked like water. His facial features were thin and fine-boned and were neither feminine nor masculine in the slightest.

From years of watching Disney films and reading fantasy novels, I could guess that he was probably the more evil one. However, I was focused, not on his apparent evil or his apparent androgyny, but to his use of one little word.

Muggle. I knew what that word meant. It meant, to witches and wizards, a person who was not a witch or wizard.

It had been a long time since I had heard anyone who used that word; I hadn't heard it since the day that Harry Potter (the boy who lived on Privet Drive, the one who had the amazing green eyes and the glasses and the unusual scar on his forehead) had told me about a secret magical world, hidden below the surface of what I - or any other muggle - could see. Harry had believed in magic; he had thought that he was a wizard, and that it was up to him to save the world from a mass-murdering lunatic. Back then, I had sort of believed it too, but it had been years since I had even heard from Harry. My belief in magic had been buried under much more practical and mundane thoughts in my head a long time ago.

It had been almost five years since I'd first had that epiphany, but it came back to me at the moment just as shocking: magic was real.

Not only that, but I was going to be killed by magical criminals.

"Isn't that nice?" continued the girly-man, kicking his leg out at the huddled form of a person on the ground. It made a groaning sound on impact. "We know how much this one likes muggles."

The figure on the ground, which I assumed was the person who had been begging not to be killed, started to weep. He was laying on his stomach on the ground, so that I couldn't see his face, but I thought that his hair might be blonde under the matted blood in it. It looked as if something had shredded through his shirt, too; the rips on his back looked as if someone had tried to carve him with a knife. My stomach lurched at the sight of it. I wondered if I would end up like him.

The thought made me sob.

Standing above him was the woman I had heard talking a few moments ago, or at least I thought it was since there was no one else there. Like the men, her outfit consisted of a long, hooded robe. The color was what my fine arts teacher would describe as carmine, as opposed to the men's robes, which were definitely more of a scarlet or crimson. There was gold embroidery around the edges of the hood, which was pulled over her head and blocked her face from view. The bottom of a plait stuck out of the hood, but I couldn't see her face - though I knew I should have been able to. When I looked there, though, I just couldn't see anything.

But that couldn't be right, because everyone had a face. I blinked and looked again.

She still didn't have a face.

"Really, Ian," the woman's cold voice said. "You're so crass. You mustn't tease the poor things. Look at the state of them."

"Are you going to kill me?" I managed to gasp out. The woman-voice chuckled.

"It can speak," she said. I thought that she might be smiling, though I couldn't see it. "It must be one of the more intelligent of its kind."

Perhaps I was just a stupid muggle, but I thought that that failed to answer my question. Of course, being the same stupid Kate that I had always been, I opened my mouth again. "That's not what I asked," I said in a small but nearly steady voice. It almost made me proud of myself. "I asked if you are planning on-"

The woman extended her arm, complete with a villain-ish pair of white gloves, towards me. To my surprise, she appeared to be holding a stick. It was an impressive stick, sort of long and thick and sort of gnarled, but I was perfectly certain that it was only a stick. It didn't seem like much of a weapon. It wasn't really sharp enough to be used to cut or stab me, and I didn't think that it was large enough to make a proper club. I blinked, expecting the woman to step towards me and attack me with it. Instead, she held her ground.

"_Crucio_," she said calmly.

My legs gave out as I began to scream.

I had never felt anything like that pain before; it was so complete, like there was nothing else besides what I was feeling at that moment. Like there never had been. It was like my skin was melting off, or like every square inch of my body was being impaled.

When it was over, I was left on the ground, whimpering and twitching. I was unable to control my body for a few long moments, unable to make myself stop the horrid sounds that were escaping my mouth. The quaking finally stopped after a few seconds, and I managed to roll over onto my side. I stopped making the sounds I had hated so much - now the only sound I was making was the sound of my heaving breath.

"Insolent girl," the woman said, as I tried (and failed) to pull myself into a more dignified position. "Did you really think that you could get away with a comment like that? Of course not, because your kind simply does not think." She shook her head disapprovingly. "I'll deal with you later. First, I'll need to see to Mr. Cooper…"

She took a few steps, so that her shoes were only centimeters away from the crying man's face. "Do you have anything else to say, Mr. Cooper?"

When he didn't immediately respond, she nudged him with her foot, and when he didn't immediately respond to that, she kicked his shoulder. He couldn't seem to form any words - he only whimpered, making kicked-dog sounds. I felt sick to my stomach, longing to tell her to stop - or, really, to be able to make her stop. I wished that I was able in some way to stop this from happening, but I wasn't.

"Fine. Be that way," she said, sounding the slightest bit peeved. I tried to pull myself together again, this time with a hint of success. I heaved into a sitting position, leaning back on my hands so that my fingernails dug into earth. She pointed her wand at the man, and I watched her every movement like I was in a cinema watching a horror movie.

"_Avada kedavra_," she said; her tone was so normal and easy that she might have been a customer ordering a sandwich at the restaurant.

A green light emerged from the end of her wand; any other time, I might have thought that it was a bit pretty. As it was, however, the light streaked towards Cooper with perfect accuracy - and the minute that it touched him, he became absolutely still. His body instantly stopped trembling, and the horrid noises he was making abruptly stopped. I knew, in my very core, that he was dead.

I made a noise half between a scream and a gasp, my eyes suddenly darting around the alley as I looked for something, anything that I could use to fight back. My breathing grew frantic, my breaths catching over and over as my hands searched for something laying around that could be useful. There had to be something that I could use. There had to be something that I could deflect that light with.

There was a glass bottle close to me; I scrambled towards it, fear giving me movement. I picked it up jolted to my feet, scrambling to push myself against the wall as I clutched at that piece of rubbish like it would somehow save me.

The woman only laughed at me, like someone laughing at a child's antics. "Silly girl. What do you think that you can to do me?" She chuckled as I opened my mouth, thinking of a response. "No, don't answer that. It was a rhetorical question. This one, however, isn't: what's your name?"

"Kate Foster," I whispered automatically.

"Kate Foster," she repeated, as if she was getting used to the sound. Her voice had a smiling tone to it, and she raised her arm again. "I hope that you have no unfinished business, Kate Foster."

_The green light_, I thought wildly. _She's going to use it on me now, just like she did to Cooper. _There was something horrible about the thought that, with nothing more than a jet of light, I would be dead and there was nothing that I or anyone else could do to stop it. And there was so much unfinished business and so many regrets that ran through my mind.

I would never finish university or become a psychologist. I hadn't told Dad and Maria that I loved them enough. I wasn't going to meet Alec's new girlfriend or be around when Pen became a famous lawyer. I hadn't gotten to help Noah pick out an engagement ring for Lizzie, like I'd promised I would. I hadn't seen my friend Nina in two years, when she eloped and moved to Spain permanently and I hadn't ever met her husband or baby son. Hell, I would never get married nor have kids. It was all because of that magic stuff that Harry Potter had mentioned so long ago.

It made me so angry. Maybe that was why some deep part of my subconscious decided to through the bottle at the woman's head.

Apparently, she hadn't expected it, because it hit her squarely on the forehead. The woman cried out. She fell onto her butt in surprise, and an angry red mark showed on her forehead where her hood had fallen away. I could finally see her face, and it surprised me.

I had expected either some sort of beast or some sort of angelic beauty to be hiding under the cloak, but in front of me I only saw a normal woman. Her hair was a shade darker than mine, with a slight red tint in the narrow beam of light that fell over her. Her facial features were perfectly average, a rounded face with a narrow nose and too-full lips. There was a tiny, easily-missed scar on her chin, a thin, curved line probably a centimeter long. She was the nondescript woman that you could walk by every day on the street - until you looked at her pale green eyes. They gave me chills.

As if she was only just realizing I could see her face, the woman abruptly stopped rubbing the mark on her forehead and pulled up the hood. Instantly, her face vanished from sight again. "You'll pay for that," she whispered in a deadly voice, taking another step closer to me.

My last stand had failed, and now she was only angrier. I closed my eyes, deciding that at least I had tried. And then something exploded.

My eyelids flew open; tiny bits of metal, glass, and paper were flying in the air, narrowly avoiding hitting my face. The remains of a rubbish bin that had been sitting beside Ian were smoking, and it was a long moment before anyone spoke again. Then, abruptly, the woman cursed out loud and whirled around so that she was no longer facing me.

"What the hell?" she demanded; looking around in what I thought was an anxious way. Suddenly, her form went stiff. She looked to her left and mumbled something sharply. To me, it sounded like, "Now, of all times?"

Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, a new voice began to speak from the entrance of the alley. "Ian Carrow, Quentin Wilkes, and Morgana Vulpine, don't make another move. On behalf of the Ministry of Magic, I'm placing you under arrest."

Someone had come to save me. I breathed in sharply; the air that rushed in felt like the manifestation of hope in my lungs.

The saviors stepped up, perfectly calm - as if they dealt with this sort of thing every day. The group was larger than I would have thought, consisting of three men and two women (_Good_, I found myself thinking, _that means they've got superior numbers_), all of whom were wearing navy blue robes. They put up a sort of unified front as they stood, arm in arm, walking forward with quick but steady steps. It was almost like I could feel them coming, deep inside - every step that they took made me tremble.

They all looked confident. The two women were as different as they could be; one was a tall, curvy black woman with short hair, while the other was an almost child-sized blonde. Despite this, though, the two of them moved in sync even more so than the others; it was like they moved together. The tallest of the three men was a gangly ginger man, and even from a distance I could see that his face was covered in freckles and that his nose was just the tiniest bit too big. The other two were about the same height, a few good inches shorter than the ginger, one with black hair that stuck up in the back and one with hair in a shade of dark gold that I couldn't really call blonde or brown. The black-haired man wore glasses and seemed very collected, while the man with brownish hair had a round, boyish face that contrasted with his determined expression.

The bespectacled man's eyes fell on me for a long moment, and I thought that I saw his calm expression waver into a bit of panic. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of something familiar in his eyes, something that made my mouth go dry. However, an instant later, that little bit of vulnerability was gone - replaced with a new, fiercer expression.

"Neville, protect the muggle. Get as close to her as you can, and don't let her get away from you," he ordered, and the man with the round face nodded. "Everyone else, you're with me. We can't let them escape this time. We might not get this chance again."

The woman - the man had called her Morgana - jumped away from me as the man that had been called Neville held out his wand and muttered an incantation, shooting a beam of blue light towards her. He appeared close to me the instant later, as if he had popped out of thin air with a crack. It made me jump; the sound was like a gun shot. The woman, meanwhile, shrieked in anger and shouted out an unintelligible word in Latin that sent a rocket of green light (the same kind that had killed Cooper) towards us. My first instinct was to push myself as far against the wall as possible. Neville, meanwhile, flicked his wand almost lazily, and transparent wall materialized to protect us from the blast.

He was looking me over keenly, examining me like I was a particularly interesting animal at the zoo. "Are you alright, Miss?" he asked, in a friendly but controlled voice. He sounded like a police man. I guessed that, in some ways, that's what the people in blue robes must have been.

"I'm fine, now," I mumbled, straightening myself up - though I didn't stray from the wall. I had a sudden flash back to myself when I was a kid and my brother and sister coaxed me into riding a roller coaster with them. The final loop of the ride had felt exactly like this. "It's almost over, and I'm not even dead."

"No, you're certainly not dead," Neville said offhandedly, turning his head back towards the tussle with dark eyes. His eyes followed every move that they were making, until the moment he looked back at me. "Right. Well, I think that the boss might prefer it if I evacuated you, so-"

"You can't do that!" I said loudly, surprising myself. Three minutes ago, I would have done anything to get out of this alley. Now I couldn't imagine leaving. "We can't go now! Not while they're still fighting! What if something goes wrong and they need your help?"

Not _our_ help, because God only knew what kind of problems would happen if I had to help. _His_ help, because I had no idea what was happening.

"We're trained professionals, you know," he informed me with a little half-smile. "Those four over there are some of the best we have in the department. You shouldn't sell them short."

But he wasn't hauling me out by my ear, either, which I took as a sign that he agreed with me.

I opened my mouth to reply, but my (sure to be embarrassing at a later time) reply was cut off with a shout. A beam of bloody red had just bounced off of the wall a few inches from my ear, and I immediately dropped to the ground. Neville had shot up another wall in between me and it, but it still seemed too close.

I turned my attention back to the fight. It seemed like, as of yet, no one had been hit with anything; however, there was a lot of noise, a lot of lights in every hue of the rainbow and lots of jumping around from the combatants. My attention zoned in on the black woman, who practically flipped to avoid being hit by blue streak from the man who had grabbed me; however, as I watched, she lost her balance and flailed in the air for a moment. Ian, the girly man, took the opportunity, and there was a bright, colorless flash. The woman screamed out in pain and seemed to crumple in on herself as blood began to soak through the front of her clothing. It looked like she'd been slashed with a knife down her chest.

"Oh my god!" I shouted, casting a look at Neville with wide-eyes. "What just happened to her?"

"Looks like sectumsempra," Neville replied, eyebrows furrowed in concern for his ally. "Ouch. Poor Lucinda."

I blinked in disbelief. "'Ouch? Poor Lucinda?'" I repeated. "That's all you've got to say? 'Ouch?' She's going to bleed to death, we've got to go over there and help her."

Oh, God, her blood was beginning to pool around her. It made my stomach lurched; my dislike of blood hadn't changed a bit since I was fourteen years old, despite all of the biology and anatomy classes I had taken since I had started university. However, those classes had taught me enough that I realized that the result would be horrible if we just allowed her to bleed out like that until the fight was over.

"Don't you know any spells that could…seal it up?" I pleaded with Neville, who was frowning at the woman. He was probably seeing what I was: her moans of pains were coming more frequently, because she wasn't able to hold them in anymore as she lost consciousness, and her face was becoming paler.

"No, not me," he said quickly, looking almost frightened at that thought. "Healing's something that I never had much of a knack for. She's going to have to go to St. Mungo's, the sooner the better."

"Oh, for the love of God, Neville!" I exclaimed, suddenly feeling extremely agitated. He seemed surprised to hear me say his name, but he said nothing. "Come with me!" We're going to go help!"

"Look, I know that you want to help her, but I'm telling you, it'll be better if I don't try to use a healing charm. If I mess it up, which I probably will, it's just going to be more work for the healers. Sit back down, before you get hit by something," he said, pulling me back as a spell flew towards us.

"I don't want you to use a spell, I just want us to be covered when I try to staunch the bleeding! Look, you can ask Harry Potter, if you know him; going along with what I want makes me quite a bit less annoying!" I insisted, jerking my hand away from his arm and looking both ways before I bolted towards Lucinda. Neville, realizing that he had no choice, hurried after me.

"Wizards," I mumbled under my breath as I knelt by Lucinda's side. She was definitely unconscious now, I decided; her eyes were closed, and she didn't respond as I touched her gently on the wrist. "You lot make things so much more complicated than they have to be, you know. If you can't use the right spells, it's always an option to just use first aid. Don't you ever have first-aid seminars at Hogwarts?"

Neville knelt beside us, and I turned my head towards him as a thought hit me like a ton of cement. I didn't have anything to staunch the blood with; I wasn't wearing a jacket or anything under my shirt, and my handbag was too far out of reach and across what looked like a war zone.

"So, um, let me ask you a question, Neville. Are you, uh, wearing anything under those robes?" I inquired. My face grew hot, realizing the way that might have come across. "N-Not like pants or anything, which I'm sure you are wearing, but like a t-shirt or something that you can take off and give to me. I just realized that I have nothing to use, and…"

Neville's expression was priceless as he waved him wand, producing a fluffy white towel out of thin air. I blushed and muttered a rapid thank you as I pressed it against the injured woman. She groaned at the pressure, and I squeezed her hand in an attempt to comfort her.

I felt, in a strange way, guilty; maybe it wasn't my fault that Cooper was dead, but if this woman died, it would feel like she died for me. Maybe she had kids at home who were worried because Mummy had a dangerous job, or a boyfriend who would be expecting her home at by dark. What if she never made it back to them, like Cooper would never make it back to his wife and four kids?

"You know a lot about magic, for a muggle," Neville mused, his dark eyes locked back on the fight. The people weren't looking so good now; Ian had an eye swollen shut, his partner was bleeding on his arm, and everyone was bleeding and covered in little nicks all over. But no one was out of the fight, other than Lucinda.

"I used to know a wizard," I said, my voice growing soft, just like it always did whenever I talked about Harry. "But not anymore." Harry Potter had been long gone for years, a world away.

In the center of the alley, the man with glasses had finally gotten a clear shot at the woman, and I could almost see him thinking. "_Stupefy_," he said. The moment that she saw that red light coming, though, she popped out of existence - like she had so many times during the fight, going from one place to another so often that it had, at times, sounded like a machine gun was in the alley with us. The difference was that this time, she didn't come back, and this time, the large man followed suit.

However, one of them wasn't fast enough; the light that had been aimed for the woman hit the Ian squarely in the chest, and he fell.

"We've got one!" the ginger yelled, sounding exhausted but happy. "Finally, we've caught one of them! We've never done that before!"

"But two of them got away," the blonde reminded him tiredly. "And Lucinda's been hurt." She came to where Neville and I were and peered down at her partner with emotionless eyes. I scooted away as the blonde summoned a floating stretcher from thin air, just like Neville had created the towel, and levitated Lucinda onto it. "I'm taking her to St. Mungo's. I'll report in later," she said shortly to the man with the glasses. She was very obviously telling him what she was going to do, not asking.

She gripped the stretcher with one hand and, with another popping noise, they were gone.

The redhead shrugged. "One victory at a time," he said nonchalantly.

"Is she going to be okay? Lucinda?" I asked, realizing that I was now the only person sitting down since Neville had stood up. I scrambled to my feet and walked with him to where the other two were standing over Ian's unconscious form. However, a wave of wooziness hit me just as I reached them, and I lurched forward. Neville and the man with glasses both reached out to one of my arms, as if to steady me, and I mumbled a quick thank you.

I didn't feel well. Maybe I needed to go to the hospital, too.

"She'll be fine," Neville assured me with a smile as he let go of my arm. "I mean, know that she's going to get to the hospital. Besides, Melanie will be with her. She's so protective of Lu that you'd think she was a guard dog."

"Oh. That's nice," I murmured faintly. "Very nice."

"Kate. Are you alright?" the black-haired main asked in a serious voice. I realized, slowly, that he still hadn't let go of my arm. And that it had sounded like he'd called me by name.

"What did you just call me?" I asked, staring into the green eyes. No. There was no way that this was happening. When he didn't answer me, instead focusing on my face concernedly, I asked again. "What did you just call me?"

Before today, I had only known one wizard. And there was no way that these people could've heard me tell Morgana my name, the way that I'd whispered it.

"Kate. That's your name. Kate Foster," the guy said, looking at me strangely. He looked almost angry, and he pulled me a bit closer to him. "Did they do something to you? Make you forget who you are?"

"No, of course not," I said softly, my hand reaching up past his glasses and towards the fringe of hair on his forehead. Gently, as if I was lifting a page in an antique book, I brushed the black hair away so that I could see the skin underneath. There it was - the lightning bolt scar that had defined him since he was a baby. I dropped my hand from his face, my cheeks growing hot as I peered into his eyes. There they were those lovely green eyes I'd adored so much. No one else could have that scar, and no one else could have those eyes, not to mention that ridiculous hair and that pair of rickety glasses.

How could I have missed the resemblance? It all came back to me now, the short summers that I had spent loitering in Little Whinging in the company of this boy and the long school terms waiting for letters.

"Harry Potter." It came out sounding like a dazed prayer.

"Yeah, Kate. It's me." Harry smiled at me, a genuine, warm smile, the kind that used to make my insides flutter and my head feel light. I smiled as I remembered all of the wonderful things about him, the way that he made me feel and the way that he looked at me and the way that he said my name. And then I remembered all of the bad, the worry, the anxiety, the years of waiting.

I slapped him across the face as hard as I could.


	2. The Office

_**As of the date of publication of this chapter, Separation Anxiety has garnered seventy one reviews, eighty-nine favorites, and one hundred fourteen alerts. I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this story so far. **_

_**Oh, and I'd like to apologize for the long wait and sub-par length of this chapter.  
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><p>About an hour later, I was sitting in the first seat in a row of blue chairs that stretched along the wall of what I could only assume was some sort of police headquarters. It large, well-lit area with painted flawlessly white. As far as I could tell, the place was a square maze of open cubicles and one larger, closed office that stretched across the left wall. The chairs were pushed against the front and arranged around a set of double doors that matched a set directly across the room. I could see inside of the little rooms that I was facing; each had a cluttered desk and a comfortable-looking leather chair inside, but absolutely no telephones or computers.<p>

"You don't think that was a bit…uncalled for?" Neville asked hesitantly from where he was standing just to the left of my chair. I jumped a little at his words because I hadn't even realized that he was there.

Neville had disappeared moments after we had arrived at that place; as to how we had gotten there, well, I wasn't sure that I could explain it. After I had slapped Harry, things went very quiet; they remained that for about two minutes, when a new pair of wizards wearing neon green robes had appeared to take away Cooper's dead body, and then another pair in red robes came to take Ian Carrow to wherever he was going. After that, Harry had instructed Neville to grab a hold of my arm; we then spontaneously teleported to, of all places, a telephone booth, where they had typed in some sort of code and I had been given a circular button with the my name and the words "muggle witness" imprinted on it. We had gotten on a lift, gone to the second level, rounded a corner, and entered through the backset of double doors.

Harry, Neville, and the ginger had marched me across the room through some kind of twisting short cut. I had been deposited in a chair and given strict instructions to stay put. After that, Harry, Neville and their ginger friend (Rob or Roger or whatever his name was) had marched into the closed office space, leaving me alone. I had been staring at the office door for quite awhile, waiting for any familiar face to step out. In fact, I wondered how Neville could have gotten out without me noticing it somehow.

"I don't think _what_ was a bit uncalled for, Neville?" I responded tightly. My tiredness and frustration leaked into my tone, and I had to pause to check my tone. "I've been sitting in this stupid chair for half an hour, exactly like I was told to do. I don't think I've done anything that was uncalled for at all."

Except maybe slap a police officer, if Harry was really (as I was assuming) a wizard-cop. Still, I considered that only a minor detail.

"Not the sitting in the chair bit," he said dryly. "The part where you slapped Harry."

"Oh, that. No, that wasn't over kill at all," I replied, twirling a lock of hair around my finger. "In fact, I think I handled it pretty well. I didn't even yell or spit in his face." Neither of these statements was entirely honest. I knew that I had not handled the situation gracefully; I also knew that, if I had known what words to use, I would have yelled at Harry. Still Neville didn't know that, did he?

"You're angry with him," said Neville; he apparently had an extraordinary ability to state the obvious. "What did he ever do to you?"

I sighed. "Nothing. That's sort of the problem." I frowned, searching for the right words. In the five years since Harry had told me about the wizarding world, I had never once had an open conversation about him or our relationship. I was out of practice. "It's been practically five years since the last time I saw him. I used to think that we were friends, but in all that time, he never once deigned to contact me. What other response am I supposed to have? "

Neville just shrugged. I supposed that there was nothing left to say to that.

I finally took a moment to get a good look at Neville, not the harried glance I had given him during all that had happened earlier. He was tall and well built, a bit taller than Harry but more broad-shouldered than Mr. Whatshisface. His caramel-colored hair had probably been crew cut at some point in the past, but it was now shaggy in a childish way. He had friendly brown eyes and a round, boyish face; he seemed like the type that would smile often. He did not seem much like the police type, but, of course, I didn't say that.

"So, what now?" I said finally.

"Right now we're waiting for the minister to get here," he informed me, eyes on the door that we had come in through when we entered. "Then, we'll go in with him and listen to Harry and Ron. They'll probably want to question you, so you might want to think about what story you'll be telling them."

"My 'story?' Why would I need a story? I haven't done anything," I protested, but Neville didn't respond. "Neville? Did you hear me? Why would I need a story?" My voice raised a few octaves. "Neville! Am I in trouble or something? Why would I need a story?"

"Look, Kate," Neville said, and he pointed at the double doors at the other end of the room. A pair of men was walking rapidly towards where we were, just barely visible from this part of the room. They were still far off, but I could automatically tell that they were coming towards us and I knew which man was more important instinctively.

"That's the Minster? In the purple?"

"Yes, that's the Minister for Magic. Equivalent of your Prime Minister, I think."

I nodded mutely, studying that man. He was dressed completely in royal purple, which stood out richly against his very dark skin. His head was shaved smooth, and had the sort of easy, confident air that I associated with someone who knew what he was doing. Everything about him seemed confident and powerful and he had the way of making everyone else look insignificant that politicians so often strived (and failed) at obtaining.

His companion was not as impressive; he had a slight build and a slumping posture, thoroughly gray hair with a receding hairline, and crow's feet. He did not seem entirely unpleasant, per se, but he was easily overlooked compared to the Minister. His own robes were dark gray, and he appeared to be lost in thought as the pair finally came to a stop in front of us.

The Minister gave us a broad but professional smile, showing off his straight white teeth. "Good afternoon, Longbottom. Afternoon, miss," he nodded his head to each of us in acknowledgment, focusing on me for an extra moment. He had an amazing voice, I decided - it made everything seem perfectly fine, even when I knew it wasn't. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt, and I'm the Minister of Magic."

"My name is Kate Foster, and I'm the…" I paused, not entirely sure how to complete the statement. "I'm the muggle," I finally finished.

The Minister smiled slightly at me. "It's nice to meet you, Miss Foster." I nodded my head sheepishly, suddenly feeling lost for words. "And this is my colleague, Richard Colt."

Richard mumbled something that sounded vaguely like 'How do you do.' He was giving me the strangest look, as if he was trying to read my mind for whatever reason; I avoided eye contact with him, instead developing an acute interest in my shoes.

It occurred to me that my shoes were dirty; a look at my clothes confirmed that I must have looked completely filthy. My jeans and shoes were covered in dirt and dried blood, with notable smears on my formerly clean pink shirt. I could only imagine what my face must have looked like; the crying and sweating I had done when I thought I was about to die had probably done horrible things to my make-up. Even my hair had drooped from its once-perky ponytail.

Wonderful. I was meeting the magical equivalent of the Prime Minster and my mascara was running.

"Shall we go in?" The Minister offered, stepping forward to the closed door that Harry and Whatshisface had gone through. I nodded rapidly and followed, with Neville standing close behind me and Richard Colt following closely behind him.

I toyed with the button that they had given me at the phone booth as I followed them into the room. It was decorated like the other room, with the same white paint and the same blue chairs; however, there was a large wooden desk sitting in the center of the room, with layers and layers of paper stacked on top of it. Harry and the ginger were on either side of the desk, conversing intently with the elderly gentleman who was sitting behind it. All three looked up as our party entered the room, with the younger two straightening up and the old man rising shakily to his feet.

He was a drawn and bony-looking old man, with a wrinkly but clean-shaven face and a much-receded hairline. His complexion was a sickly pale color and bags under his eyes that suggested that he was not well. His blue robes, similar to the ones that Harry and his crew wore, were much more elaborate than even the Minister's was but seemed to be nearly falling off of his frame.

"Ah, Minister," he said, in the type of old-man voice that I associated with my grandfather. It had an unexpected quaver to it that instantly made me feel sorry for him. "Thank you so much for coming, and in such a timely manner. Yes, I hate to have disturbed you from your work, sir, but I believe that we may need to consult you on this delicate situation." He waved his hand at the chairs (I noticed a moment later that he was holding a wand) and two of them moved to the front of the desk just as he stepped away from it. "Please, take my seat, Minister. Much more comfortable than these, I'm afraid."

"I'm well aware how uncomfortable the chairs are, Mr. Brice," the Minister said with a chuckle. "Keep your seat." He took the seat to the right, but Harry, Neville, Richard, and the ginger remained standing. I looked at the remaining chair, wondering if I was supposed to sit there. No, it was probably for Richard; I was probably supposed to be standing up.

"The other is for you, my dear," said the old man - Mr. Brice - gently, and I realized slowly that he was probably talking about me. I rather doubted that he was calling any of the men in the room "dear."

"Oh. Me. Right," I mumbled. I half-stumbled towards the chair, suddenly thinking of the uncomfortable idea of sitting beside the Minister for Magic. "Thank you so much," I said a bit more clearly as I sat down. They weren't only joking when they said the chairs were uncomfortable; I wondered if they would be offended if I asked to stand instead. I decided I shouldn't risk it and tried to look as if I was comfortable instead.

Across the desk from me, Harry was giving me a penetrating and mildly disturbing look, and I shifted in my seat when I noticed that his left cheek still had a telltale red mark in the shape of my hand. I almost wanted to smile as I looked at it, which made me feel mean and vindictive. It was actually incredibly satisfying.

"Now, Ms. Foster," the old man began. Seeing the look on my face (which was probably some sort of twisted expression as I realized that Harry had been in this room talking about me), he hastily began to backtrack. "We are correct in saying that that is your name?"

"Yes, that's my name," I said, letting my face relax again. "I'm sorry. I just was not expecting you to know it already. Please, go on."

"Ms. Foster," he said again, "would you please give us your accounts of the events of the day? Up until the moment Mr. Potter and his company arrived, if you'd please."

"Oh, sure. Of course," I said with a half-smile before I launched into my story. My summary went like this:

I had left the flat for work that morning (walking, since I didn't have a car) and worked the morning/early-afternoon shift. I had left the restaurant at noon, since I intended to catch a one o'clock train However, when I had reached the building, I realized that I didn't have my keys on me and thought I may have left them in the restaurant, so I had doubled back. I had decided to take a shortcut through a back alley, but I had soon heard the voices of Morgana and cronies threatening Cooper. I had been frightened enough to call 999, but one of the men (not the one they had in custody, but the other one) caught me and dragged me to where they were. My own big mouth made the woman angry with me, so she used some kind of curse on me. After that, she had rounded on Cooper and killed him with that weird green light. She had been about to kill me, too, when I threw a bottle at her. It had knocked her off balance and knocked off the hood of her cloak, but she had rapidly recovered. She was just about to kill me when the others had arrived on the scene and put a stop to that.

The listeners were politely silent during my explanation, but the minute that I finished, everyone in the room launched into questions (except for Harry, who merely stared at me with a familiar expression of tiredness I hadn't seen for years). Strangely enough, they all seemed to pertain to one issue: Morgana's face.

"Did you, by any chance, happen to see the woman's face when her hood fell off?" the Minister of Magic inquired, looking intently at my face after the people in the room had calmed down.

"Yes," I said slowly, taking in the shocked expressions of the people around me. "When it hit her with the bottle, the hood of her cloak fell off and I saw her face. Why? Is that important?"

"No one," Mr. Brice said slowly, "none of our aurors or any of our previous witnesses has ever seen this woman's face before." He was looking at me as if I was suddenly a thousand times more valuable, as if I'd suddenly revealed that my bones were made of solid diamond. As disconcerting as that was, it was much easier to comprehend that the words that had just come out of his mouth.

Meanwhile, I sat back against my chair, stupefied. "Let me get this straight. Oh, and I'm sorry if that sounded rude, by the way, but this is a bit unbelievable," I drawled, taking care to enunciate as clearly as possible. "You lot have allegedly been looking for these three people for quite some time now. You have encountered them numerous times, and they had committed several murders. You even have their _names_, but you have honestly never seen the face of their leader? I'm sorry, but exactly how is that possible?"

To my surprise, Harry's redheaded mate answered my question, leaning over Mr. Brice's desk in order to get almost-eye level with me. He was smiling, but it wasn't an entire pleasant smile. "Well, Kate, I think that they call it magic."

"But what kind of magic?" I persisted. "Surely you have some kind of idea of what kind of magic you would have to use to disguise your face like that. It can't be exactly that common, can it?" _Unless wizards regularly make themselves invisible, just because they can,_ I thought. Somehow, I could see that being a definite possibility.

"We had believed that she may be using a Disillusionment," Mr. Brice mentioned, as he gave the ginger a definite "back off" look. The other man did, and his blue eyes began to shine as he did so. His ears also started to turn maroon. "Which is to say that we felt that she was using the spell to make herself a sort of human chameleon? However, it is unlikely that such a charm would be related to a certain piece of clothing. It's more likely that she's using a modified concept of an invisibility cloak to hide only her face."

"Oh. Of course," I muttered, feeling discouraged. "A modified invisibility cloak. Right."

"And furthermore," Mr. Brice continued, "the name that we have for this woman is only an alias. It was used on a note found with the woman's first victims, which were signed as "Morgana Vulpine"; later on, the red-cloaked woman actually referred to herself as such during a confrontation between herself and her colleagues and the Aurors. She has, however, gone to painstaking lengths to hide her face from Aurors and all others." He paused. "Her cohorts have no such issues. Most of them had a criminal record long before the foundation of this group, which calls itself the Crucible Syndicate."

There was lengthy pause then, in which all that I seemed to be capable of doing was repeating those words over and over in my mind. _Crucible Syndicate. Crucible Syndicate. _It did sound evil, didn't it?

"So," Neville said in a quiet voice. "What did she look like?"

Morgana's face was burned into my mind. "Her hair is brown, with a bit of reddish tint, and it's cut in a bob. There was a little scar on her chin, I think. I don't think she's very old, maybe thirty-five, if that. Pale skin, no freckles." I stopped to gather my thoughts. "She's so normal. I was expecting her to look sinister somehow, either ugly or extremely pretty, but she was only average."

"That's a very vague description, Ms. Foster," the Minister said, bringing one of his hands to his chin and scratching it. "Is there nothing else that you can remember about her?"

"No," I responded, shaking my head. There was nothing else at all, and I could only wonder at what else I could possibly tell them. I had given them every detail that had crossed my mind "She looks normal, like a person that you might see on the street any day of the week. Well, she looks more hateful than most people do, I suppose. But that's all I know."

"Is that so?" said a voice. It took me a moment to realize who was speaking. After a moment, I realized it was Richard, and that it was the first time that I properly heard his voice. I turned in my seat so that I could see him. His eyes were still studying me, and I found it disturbing enough that I turned back around and looked at my lap instead. "Perhaps it will be necessary to extract the memory and see for ourselves, then."

Memory extraction didn't strike me as pleasant. I wondered what it felt like to have your memories extracted. Did it hurt? It sounded like it would hurt. Maybe it was a type of brain operation. It brought to mind the images of a surgeon looming over me with scalpels and such. Despite myself, I shuddered; having an operation done on my brain was not a pleasant prospect. Almost instinctively, I raised a hand to my temple.

"No. We're not doing that," someone said fiercely. I looked up to see who had spoken, as everyone else in the room had. To my surprise, it was Harry. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes were locked onto Richard's distrustfully. "You know as well as I do that memory extraction is dangerous, Colt. It's never been done successfully without the target suffering some side effects, and no one has ever tried it on a muggle before. She's a person, not a lab rat."

I turned back to Colt, who was shrugging. "It was only a suggestion," he said blithely, as if he didn't care one way or another. I highly doubted that he really felt as nonchalantly about it as that.

"Then what would you suggest we do, Mr. Potter?" the Minister said with a sigh. "I agree that extracting the memory won't do, but we cannot simply allow our only witness to leave or to go unprotected."

I wanted to ask why I might need to be protected, but the thought hit me hard. I'd seen Morgana's face. This was a woman who was so determined to remain anonymous that she wore a magical cloak to hide her face; what would she do to me now that I knew what she looked like? It wasn't even as if she didn't know who I was, I realized suddenly; I had told her my name. I wanted to curse myself for being so stupid as to tell the woman my name.

Harry looked directly at me as he made his suggestion: "I propose that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement place Kate Foster in witness protection."

"Witness protection?" I mumbled, just before my jaw dropped. "You want to put me in _witness protection?_" I wanted to tell him that it was an absurd idea. I wanted to say that it was unnecessary to go so far as to put me in witness protection, but I couldn't seem to say the words.

"Not in full protection, of course," Harry was continuing rapidly, no longer paying me any attention. "She doesn't need to be completely in hiding. There's no use of doing that or putting her under the Fidelius Charm, since we'll need her to identify Morgana when we catch her. I suggest placing her in the home of a trusted official, so that we can both protect her and contact her immediately should we need her assistance."

I took a deep breath and crossed my arms over my chest. It was almost as if I was trying to hold myself together, as if the simple action could keep the words I wanted to say trapped inside. "Actually, if it's all the same to you, Mr. Potter," I began, hoping that he note my use of his surname as a warning to back off, "I would prefer to go home."

If the etiquette lessons I'd been put through as a teenager had taught me anything, it was that saying _"I'm not going anywhere with you, you arse!" _and stomping out of the room would be considered quite rude - thought that was much more along the lines of what I actually wanted to do.

"Ms. Foster," said Mr. Brice in a mild tone, "I'm afraid that your going home simply isn't an option at this point."

"Oh." The sound was in my voice, but I hardly noticed letting it out. It was because I was having a rather disturbing epiphany: I wasn't going home. I couldn't go home. I didn't know when I would be going home. Now I was thinking that I had never wanted anything more than I wanted to be on the train to Little Whinging. "Why not?" my voice continued of its own accord.

"You must not assume that we are simply preventing you from going home because it would inconvenience us, Ms. Foster," he responded. I hadn't even begun to suspect that. I was still caught on the concept of not going home. "While Mr. Potter's suggestion would be infinitely more beneficial for the sake of our investigation, it is not the only reason why it would be a very bad idea for you to go home. You see, my dear, the obstacles of guarding a muggle in the muggle world are innumerable, and these obstacles would compromise your safety. That's not even mentioning the danger that it would pose to your friends and family."

"My friends and family?" I repeated dully. Of course. It wasn't enough that a psychotic witch would be trying to kill me. My friends and family would have to be involved, too.

"Your loved ones would only be considered variables to people like them," Mr. Brice continued. The steely look in his eyes, the looks of a general, almost made me forget about how obviously frail the man was. "They would only be obstacles to remove or perhaps bargaining chips. It would be nearly impossible for all of them to escape from this unscathed, you see."

"Oh. Your plan sounds fine," I said, forcing myself to smile in a truly uncomfortable fashion. Of course, then I began to babble in a truly Kate-esque fashion. "I mean, it's really a win-win, isn't it? I wind up being safer. My friends and family aren't put in any danger because they're potential obstacles or bargaining chips in my demise. You lot have an easier time in bagging up your criminals. Everybody wins, right?"

The look Harry gave me then was as familiar as the back of my hand; it was the sort of look that I had spent summers subjected to, the sort that had made fifteen-year-old me cringe and immediately stop talking. Actually, its effect on me at twenty-one was remarkably similar.

Mr. Brice continued to smile. "I'm glad that we're in agreement on this, Ms. Foster. Now, Mr. Potter, let's discuss your exact ideas and plans on how exactly you will proceed to accommodate Ms. Foster during her stay with you during the upcoming days."

At that moment, I was certain that both Harry and I both wished that we could melt through the floor and disappear. Both of our mouths gaped open, and his cheeks started to glow red at the same moment when I felt mine heat up. For a moment, before either of us said a word, our eyes met. His awkward and uncertain look matched my deer in headlights look, and it didn't take very long for him to recover after that.

"Mr. Brice, sir, that's really not what I…" Harry swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "I didn't mean that I wanted to be in the one to host Ms. Foster. Honestly, isn't there someone who would be more suited to the task?"

It appeared that he didn't want me to stay with him. The feeling was mutual. The man who was standing just feet away from me had never given me any reason to trust him. He had lied to me for years before telling me the truth about the existence of magic, and then he had just left. He had let me kiss him, let me fall half in love with him, and then he had simply walked out of my life and left me wondering after him for five years. Why in the world would I trust my life with him if I couldn't even trust him to remember my address?

"Who could possibly be more suited to this task than you, Mr. Potter?" Brice asked. He cocked his head to the side slightly like a bird. "It would seem to me that it would be the most logical choice to appoint you as Ms. Foster's guardian, as you are the one who came up with this plan for her protection in the first place. Moreover, of course, you are the head investigator of this case. She's your only witness. It would seem like it would be rather important for you to make sure that she has the best possible protection, and who better to provide it than the Savior of the Wizarding World?"

It was at that moment when I realized that I didn't particularly care for Mr. Brice. It was also at that moment that Harry realized that he really had no other choice than to take me with him. I could see it in the way that his face paled by a shade and by the way that he began to fidget.

"Don't you concur, Minister?" the old man continued smoothly.

"I do, Mr. Brice," said Kingsley Shaklebolt. As amazing as his voice might have been, I couldn't help but feel like he was mocking me. Perhaps I was just being too defensive.

"Then I think that we're finished here for the time being," Brice decided. "Mr. Potter, I believe that it would be wise of you to leave the office a bit early this evening. Take Ms. Foster and orientate her more thoroughly to the situation. I expect you to tie up any loose ends on your own initiative, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir. I think I'll start on that immediately," Harry said seriously. Then, in a serious, solemn way, he stepped around the table and locked his fingers on my shoulder. Before I could ask him what in the world he thought he was doing, he was tightening his grip and mumbling, "Don't pull away," in my ear.

There was a loud snapping sound and the image of the room ripped away.

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><p><em><strong>Keep in mind that this was mostly a set-up chapter. I'm not very fond of it, but I figured that since I'd done little actual writing on it this month, I should go ahead and publish something...<strong>_

_**On a somewhat related note, I've begun to work on a new **_**Harry Potter**_** fanfic: **_**Crocodile Tears**_**. Like this one, it revolves around an OC, but it will be very different from Hero Complex and this story. So far, only the prologue is up, but check it out sometime when you're bored...  
><strong>_


	3. The Facts

**_One hundred and two reviews, one hundred and ten favs, and one hundred and forty-two story alerts in three chapters! You guys make me the happiest fanfic author in the whole wide world. Thanks for reading, everybody. _**

**_I had intended for this chapter and the last one to be one and the same, but during the writing of chapter two I realized that it would be just too long. So, instead, enjoy a second transitional/explanatory chapter. I promise that the next chapter will be more interesting._**

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><p>For the second time, the universe contracted and squeezed and blurred all around me. The feeling of being hurled across the space-time continuum was not one that I had ever imagined that I would experience, but now that I had, I realized that it was a completely awful thing. It was as if I was being squeezed through a telephone wire, as if I was riding the fastest rollercoaster on the face of the planet at a hundred times its normal speed. My knees gave out as Harry and I rejoined the rest of the universe, and I found myself sprawled disgracefully on the carpet of an entirely new place. I felt nauseated and frightened and, in the strangest way, violated. I didn't even want to get off the floor; as a matter of fact, I only wanted to curl into a ball and cry.<p>

Instead of doing that, I took a series of deep breaths in an attempt to keep my breakfast down and spent a long moment trying to comprehend where in the world I was. I was surrounded by peach-colored walls punctuated by gray doors, and I was sitting on a plush beige carpet. The doors all had gold numbers on them, and the one that Harry stood in front of now was number twelve. We must have been in a block of flats, presumably the one Harry lived in.

Harry himself peered at me with scornful curiosity, as if I was something particularly interesting that he had found stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

"You alright?" he asked passively. Was it my imagination, or was there some kind of amusement in his eyes?

I gaped at him incredulously. Had he really just asked me what I thought he had asked me? Could he really be that cruel? Surely I had heard him wrong. "I'm sorry; did you just ask me if I'm_ alright_?"

"Yes. I know that Apparition is difficult the first few times you experience it. It can be very unpleasant, but you get used to it." Harry paused. "So. _Are_ you alright?"

Being alright was no option of mine at the moment. In a span of three hours, I had been caught by psychopaths while trying to do a good deed in an eerie alleyway. I had been tortured by the aforementioned psychopaths, who had proceeded to murder a man before my eyes. I had watched a woman bleed half to death on the ground. I had been taken into police custody, and now I was involved in some kind of magical witness protection program that meant that I couldn't go home or contact my family for an indefinite period of time. As if all of that wasn't enough, I also had to cohabitate with a man who had practically ditched me five years before. There was no way in the world that I could possibly be alright.

"No," I told him blankly. "And if it's all the same to you, I would prefer not to get used to it. Honestly, is there any reason why we couldn't have just taken a cab?"

Harry held out his hand without another word, and I hesitated for half a second before I took it and allowed him to help me to my feet. The action and the expression on his face were so familiar that I wondered for half a moment how I hadn't instantly recognized him when he appeared in the alley. I scrutinized his face carefully, looking for the difference between this Harry and the one I had spent summers with in Little Whinging.

To my surprise, there wasn't much. His hair, which might have been just a little shorter than I remembered, was still black and bedraggled. I thought that he might have grown a few inches, though he had always been taller than me, and it occurred to me that he was broader in the chest than he was as a teenager. His face showed more maturity and his glasses looked newer, but his eyes hadn't changed in the slightest.

"Wizards don't take cabs," he informed me stonily. Harry turned away from me and began to dig in a hidden pocket of his robes. He pulled out a golden key and turned towards the door of number twelve. A few seconds later, the door swung open, and Harry looked back at me with raised eyebrows.

"'_Wizards don't take cabs_,'" I mumbled under my breath. "Of course they don't. That's much too mundane for the likes of them."

"After you, Ms. Foster," he said in a low voice, waving me into the dark interior of the flat. I stuck my chin up in the air as I walked past him into the darkness. I was determined that, though I must have seemed helpless in this situation, I could hold onto some shred of independence. Harry, of course, ruined my entrance by turning on the lights before I had even managed to get past the entry.

To my surprise, Harry's flat appeared to be a very normal bachelor pad. I stepped out of a small, narrow hallway into a living room overlooked by a small, narrow kitchen. There were no crystal balls, no wizard staffs, and no bubbling cauldrons in sight. Instead, his living room was swallowed up by a sofa, love seat, and armchair, all gathered around a large brick fireplace. The mantel was decorated with knickknacks, a handful of books, and a few framed photographs; over it, oddly enough, was a rack holding what seemed to be an ornate broom. There was a coffee table in the room's center that was almost covered in heaps of newspapers, photographs, and a large map. Other than that, there was no clutter in the room – no misplaced underpants, no stacks of dirty dishes, no heaps of take-out wrappers and soda cans.

It was almost disappointing.

"Right, so this is it," Harry said, coming in behind me. Without so much as a sideways glance at me, he pulled his navy blue robe over his head, exposing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and then tossed it over the back of the armchair. "Make yourself at home."

"How nice," I commented cordially, with a glimpse at his discarded clothing. Something told me that his flat wasn't in such good order because Harry was a conscientious housekeeper. I doubted that he did much home maintenance himself, which meant that he probably had someone to do it for him, either some sort of maid or a girlfriend. "It's very tidy," I noted.

Harry shrugged. "I have help with it. I don't think that Kreacher is here right now – he usually goes to the grocer's on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons – but you'll meet him later." Kreacher seemed like a strange name for a person, and it seemed strange that someone who lived in a fairly small flat would even have a butler, but I didn't push it. "Have a seat. I think I'll nip in the kitchen and grab a drink. You want anything?"

"Sure. Whatever you've got is fine."

Harry left the room and began to rummage loudly in the kitchen; I looked at the furniture, as if deciding where to sit was an important decision. I chose to sit on one end of the sofa, which was a low, over-stuffed thing covered in dark brown leather. It was pretty much frill-free, except for simple red cushions that were obviously there for comfort and not appearance. I let out a satisfied sigh as I collapsed onto the couch, immediately deciding that I was going to kick off my tennis shoes and pull my legs up beside me on the sofa. Since I had already slapped my host once that day, I felt like I was way past worrying about decorum.

"Sorry, this is all I had in the refrigerator," Harry said, walking back into the room with two open bottles of golden liquid held in his hand. The label on the outside read 'butterbeer and I dubiously wondered what kind of beer he was giving me. In response to my unspoken question, Harry said, "The alcohol content is very low. You aren't going to get pissed on a bottle of butterbeer, if that's what you're wondering. Go ahead, try it."

He handed me one of the bottles, and I hesitated just slightly before I took a sip. Butterbeer tasted almost nothing like beer; it tasted like liquid butterscotch and cream, with the slightest bit of something bitter that kept the drink from being too overwhelmingly sweet.

"Thank you, it's delicious," I said quietly. Harry nodded and took a draught from his own bottle. He then sat down in the armchair, which was closest to my end of the sofa and happened to be upholstered in burgundy suede. For a few moments, neither of us said a word, and neither of us looked at the other.

"Alright, Kate," he said briskly after a long moment. "There are some things that we have to discuss."

"Yes, there are," I agreed emphatically.

"I'll explain the situation first, so that you understand what and why everything we're doing here is so important." When I nodded silently, he launched into an explanation. "Well, as you might remember, there has been a lot of tension between muggles and wizards over time. Back in the 1600s, a thing called the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was passed to more clearly define the lines between the wizarding world and the muggle world.

"Certain sects within the wizarding community have come to hate muggles and muggleborns so much that there have been a number of wars internationally, the most recent being the war with Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Voldemort was defeated, but many of the old prejudices are still alive.

"Indirectly, that war has led to the current situation. After the war was over, a muggleborn witch named Laura Quentin and her muggle brother, Stanley, started an international movement to incorporate muggle technologies into the magical world. In general, magic doesn't work well with muggle technology and electric devices. However, the Quentin Corporation has made groundbreaking discoveries in making magic more electricity-friendly. One of the Quentin Corporation's more ambitious projects was to open a block of flats that can support magic and electricity. In fact, we're sitting in that block of flats now. They've brought electricity and many electric devices to the magical world, and most witches and wizards are enthusiastic about the new benefits such technology has brought to their lives. Some, however, are not. Are you following so far?"

Quickly, I summarized what I had gathered: "Muggles and wizards have a troubled history together and therefore don't mix now. There's a lot of prejudice when dealing with muggles and muggleborns still. Magic does not work well with electricity, but the Quentin Corporation has figured out how to mix magic and electricity. They built this building. Lots of people like it. Some people don't."

Harry nodded. "Exactly. Like I said, old prejudices are still rampant in the magical community. There are people out there who believe that bringing muggle technology to the magical world will ultimately become a gateway to the fall of the International Statue of Secrecy, which will lead to witches and wizards being discovered throughout the world. They fear that this will lead to violence.

"Some of them, many of those who supported or who had family that supported Voldemort's regime, want the magical world to become completely isolated from the muggle world. In other words, they want witches and wizards to leave behind anything and anyone muggle in their lives: technology, homes, friends, and family. In order to bring about this end, these people have founded a group devoted to this cause: namely, the Crucible Syndicate.

"Their first act, dated the eleventh of January of this year, was to murder Laura Quentin in her own home. We know that they committed this murder because they left a letter, detailing the aims of the group and signed by their leader, Morgana Vulpine. Since then, the Crucible Syndicate has been linked to no less than fifty crimes, each time leaving behind an identical letter to the one found at the Quentin murder.

"Most of these crimes were murders much like the one you witnessed today; the victim was a great supporter of the Quentin Corporation and of loosening the control of the Statue of Secrecy. People like him are being killed all over the country. However, murder isn't the Syndicate's only crime. They've also been involved in the kidnapping of no less than twelve muggleborn children. "

"Aurors – dark wizard hunters, like me – have occasionally been able to track them to the scene of a crime, but today was really a turning point. For the first time since the beginning of the investigation, we have caught a member of the Syndicate. We also have an eye witness who has seen the face of Morgana Vulpine, leader of the Crucible Syndicate." Harry gave me a grim smile. "This is why it's so important that we have your cooperation, Kate. We want to catch these people before they kill anyone else and before they take any more children away from their families."

In my mind, I could see a collage of pictures from the newspaper and the television screen: bright-eyed children who had disappeared into thin air and men and women who had died mysterious deaths over a six-month period. When I had heard their stories on the news or read it in the paper, I would turn the page or change channels to something more pleasant. I would think that it was sad, but I would tell myself that people were killed and went missing every day. It was just another part of life, after all. I had never imagined that my fate would get tangled up in theirs. I had never imagined that I could do anything about it. It should have made me feel happy. It didn't.

I couldn't seem to bring myself to look Harry in the eyes or to speak. All that I could do was stare at the floor. My mouth opened and then closed as I tried to process my thoughts and emotions on the situation.

I wanted those deaths and those kidnappings to be remote again, but they were thoroughly and painfully real. All of this was my problem now, I realized. If I didn't do my best to get along with Harry and go along with what the Aurors wanted, people might die and children might be taken away from their families. How could I live with myself if I didn't do everything within my power to stop it?

"I'll do it," I told Harry softly, raising my eyes to his. "I'll cooperate with you. Just tell me what you want from me, and I'll do my very best."

I listened to the plan that Harry had worked out so far. I would stay in his guest bedroom unless he had to respond to an emergency situation, in which case I would stay with one of his trusted coworkers. During the day, I would go with him back to the Ministry of Magic. I would go there under an assumed name (though it would probably only be a different surname, to prevent as many slip-ups as possible) and we would have to find some kind of excuse for me to be there that didn't involve magic (which Harry said that he was going to have to think on). I would be going virtually everywhere that he went, with the exception of staying in the Auror Offices should he have to go on assignment. Should the Aurors track down a woman they thought could be Morgana, I would be asked to positively identify her.

"Sounds good," I said nonchalantly, or as nonchalantly as I could when faced with the reality of the situation. "What can we do now?"

"Erm…" Harry didn't seem to have an answer for that. His explanation had taken a while, but there was still plenty of daylight outside, and it looked like we were out of things to say. God forbid, he might have wanted to talk on a personal level. Just the thought made me grimace. If he told me that we should catch up, I was going to throw my half-empty bottle of butterbeer at his head and call the whole thing off right there.

Before Harry could answer, I interrupted. "Do you think that I could see the rest of the place? And that I could take a shower before we make any other decisions?"

Harry looked at me as if he was seeing my bloody clothes and tear-streaked face for the first time. "Oh. Yeah, of course." He stood up, and I did, too. "We'll start with the kitchen, it's right back here…"

He led me on a brief tour of the flat; we started in the kitchen, which was had a sleek, modern design and new (though slightly strange-looking) appliances. It held a tiny table with only three chairs and featured sliding glass doors that featured onto a small balcony. He then showed me a closet that held a clothes washer and dry stacked on top of each other, with a basket of neatly folded clothes sitting on the floor in front of them. We then doubled back through the living area and continued down a short, dark hallway with three doors. The one at the very end was Harry's bedroom; I couldn't see inside of it because the door was closed. He pointed it out briefly, then steered me towards the bathroom.

Like the kitchen, everything I saw was very sparsely decorated. Harry motioned to the shower-bath, which had little shelves in the tile to hold soap and shampoo, and then to the cabinet over the toilet.

"Go ahead and use my soap and shampoo. Towels are in the cabinet. Erm…" He looked immensely uncomfortable. "If you take off your clothes and leave them by the door, I'll put them in the laundry for Kreacher to take care of. I'm going to go look in my bedroom, see if I have any old things that will fit you. There's a bathrobe of mine on the hook that I almost never use, so you can just…well…"

"I understand," I said, saving both of us another moment of this awkward conversation. "Thank you, Harry. I really do appreciate it." I gave him what I hoped looked like a sincere smile. He then smiled tightly back at me and left the room.

After a moment, I undressed and, after a careful glance, stuck my blouse, jeans, and socks outside of the door. I highly doubted that Harry would have any underthings to loan me, and my shoes were mostly fine, so I decided I should just keep them with me. After that, I started the water and stepped into the shower, allowing the hot, soapy water to wash away all of the dirt and grime. It felt wonderful to stand under the water and relax for a moment, and I almost hated to get out once my hair and body were all clean.

I dried off, put on my underthings, and then wrapped myself in Harry's flannel bathrobe. It was large on me, but after a moment's struggle, I covered myself with it well enough. Grabbing both my trainers in one hand, I stuck my head out the door. The coast was clear, so I stepped quickly and easily across the hall.

Upon further inspection, the guest bedroom was small and sparsely decorated. There was a bed positioned horizontally along the wall across from the door, and a wardrobe on the back wall. At the foot of the bed, there was a closed trunk. The nightstand held only a small lamp and an old-looking leather book. The bed was covered in a plain quilt in shades of blue and red, and the one small window in the room was covered in matching curtains. If I had to guess, this room didn't see much use, because it looked too clean and too simply decorated. Apparently, Harry hadn't found any clothes for me yet, so I keep the robe on and sat down on the bed.

"Well, this is lovely," I said aloud, my voice sounding strange and unfamiliar in the quiet room. Sitting alone in that empty bedroom, wearing Harry Potter's bathrobe, I realized that I had never felt more awkward in my life. I had always had a habit for getting myself into uncomfortable positions, but now it was getting absolutely ridiculous. I sighed out loud. "What in the world have I gotten myself into now?" I asked the empty air.

I had to do something to keep myself from dwelling on my situation, so I reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the book. It looked strangely handmade. I turned past the blank cover and found myself staring at a photograph of a man who looked almost exactly like Harry and a woman with his green eyes. They could only be his parents. I remembered when Harry told me their stories, years before. _Lily and James, _I remembered. _Those were their names_. In the photo,they clasped hands and danced, wearing coats and standing in front of a water fountain on a gray autumn day. To my astonishment, they moved like people on a television screen, smiling up at me as they turned and did a waltzy little dance step.

"Whoa," I muttered. This was a magic I could get behind.

Eagerly, I turned the page to the next picture. In it, the same couple stood surrounded by friends; she was wearing a wedding dress, her long red hair curled into a million little ringlets, and he was wearing formal black robes. In the next picture, James Potter was standing in the middle of a group of four boys, all with their arms slung across each other casually and huge grins on their faces. In the next, Lily Potter was sitting beside a tree with a book in her hands; she waved at me while the pages blew in the was beautiful.

There were more pages of candid pictures of the couple (and Lily Potter's stomach began to bulge out in some of them), and then I turned to a picture that really took my breath away: Mr. and Mrs. Potter holding a tiny, scrunch-faced infant with fuzzy black hair between them. Occasionally, the baby opened its mouth in a silent wail, and his parents would turn towards him and console him.

It occurred to me suddenly how personal a photo album like this must be to Harry, who had never known his mum and dad. I felt like I was intruding on something private, but that sense of overstepping my boundaries didn't stop me from scanning the pages. They looked like such a happy little family, grinning and waving; it was hard to think that Mr. and Mrs. Potter were dead a year after some of these pictures were taken.

After a few pages of them as a family, the subject matter switched abruptly. Now, they showed pictures of a happy Harry Potter at maybe ten or eleven, side by side with a pair of beaming children. One looked an awful lot like the redheaded Auror. The other was a girl with bushy brown hair and teeth that were just a bit large. After a few of these, it appeared that someone had added more pages to the book, because the paper was different. These pictures showed Harry as I had known him as a teenager, with the same pair of kids and a gaggle of other friends.

I was surprised to see a few of Harry and a pretty redheaded girl in positions that could only be described as intimate and romantic. Wow. Harry Potter had had a girlfriend. Funny how I never heard about that.

"Kate?" Abruptly, Harry was knocking on the bedroom door. "I've found you some clothes. Can I come in?"

"Oh, just one minute," I said a bit too loudly. My cheeks flamed as I scrambled to replace the photo album on the shelf. I checked the state of the bathrobe to be sure that everything important was covered and moved back to the edge of the bed. "Alright, you can come in."

Harry entered the room with a wary look on his face. In his hands, there was a stack of clothes that he held out in front of him like a shield. He placed them beside the lamp on the bedside table and blinked at me as if he was feeling bashful. Then, abruptly, he seemed to shake it off and gave me an insincere half-smile.

"So, I've been thinking," he began, "that it might be a good idea for us to go shopping. I mean, my old things and the clothes you came here in won't be enough for you to wear your whole stay, plus they aren't exactly the sort of things that witches and wizards tend to wear. There's also the benefit of you getting more acquainted with wizarding society. So, what do you say?"

"But…" I paused. I really wasn't expecting harry to suggest that we should go shopping. "Is it really smart for me to go right now? What if someone from the Crucible Syndicate sees me?"

"Then they'll know that you are under Ministry protection and that they shouldn't mess with you," Harry said matter-of-factly. "Don't worry about that, Kate. Most members won't have a clue what you look like; I doubt that they've been able to meet yet to discuss what's happening. Besides, they wouldn't strike out at you in a crowded place. You'll be perfectly safe."

"Oh. If you say so, I'm sure it would be fine." Another thought occurred to me. "But how am I going to pay? I don't have any money."

He shrugged nonchalantly. "The Ministry will pay for it."

Well, when he put it like that, there was no reason why I shouldn't have wanted to go. I bit the inside of my lip between my teeth, but I nodded in agreement. Something in Harry's eyes changed when I did ever-so-slightly.

"Alright. I'll leave you to get ready, then." With that, he swept out of the room and closed the door behind him.

I sighed out loud and turned my attention to the clothes Harry had brought with him. Upon further inspection, I had been given a pair of jeans with ratty cuffs and a plaid-button up shirt. They looked too small for Harry to wear now, which meant that they must have been old. In fact, they looked like clothes that had be in style for guys when I had been a teenager, and I wondered if they were really that old. Well, it wasn't like it mattered, anyway.

When I had pulled on the clothes, I walked back to the bathroom to check out how they looked. The clothes fit me well enough, but they weren't exactly flattering. The pants were a little baggy and just slightly too long, but I rolled up the cuffs and they were fine. The shirt was a pretty good fit, but the cut was obviously masculine and it didn't look good on me. I was started to see that, in these clothes, I looked almost like a teenage boy. Well, I couldn't have that, so I pushed the sleeves up to my elbows and undid a button higher than I would have normally.

I rummaged around in the bathroom until I found a brush (I was surprised that Harry actually had one, truth be told) and ran it through my hair. After that, I decided that I was good to go. It wasn't like I had to worry with makeup or anything, right? I was in witness protection. If there was a better excuse to not worry about my appearance, I didn't know it.

I went back to the living room, where I found Harry sitting on the sofa and pouring over a paper from the stack. He looked almost exactly the same as he had before, except that he was wearing a set of black robes over his t-shirt and jeans instead of the one he had worn to work, which was still lying over the back of the sofa. He stood up quickly, returning the paper to the stack, and looked me over from head to toe.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Was I ready to face the magical world? Was I ready to step from the relative safety of this flat and into the open, where a wand-wielding psychopath could be waiting around the corner? No. Of course I wasn't.

"Yes," I lied.

"Great." Harry gave me a smug-looking smile. "If it would make you feel better, then I suppose that we could take a cab."

Smart arse.

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><p><em><strong>Apparition, because transit is too mainstream. Wizards are such hipsters.<strong>__***ahem*** **But I digress...**_

_**I was wondering if any of the readers of this story would be interested in making a cover for it (or for the first in this series, for that matter). I would do something myself, but I have no artistic talent. I don't really care it it's a drawing or a digital artwork, as long as Harry and Kate are represent. So, if anyone is interested, PM me and I'll do something for you in return. I don't know what exactly (write a one-shot for your pairing of choice? give your OC a cameo in the story?), but we can work it out.  
><strong>_

_**Anyway, hope all of you enjoyed the latest chapter of Separation Anxiety! Coming soon (or eventually!): Kate's first outing in Diagon Alley, Ron and Hermione, Auror office antics, and all of the joys of witness protection! And maybe some other stuff, my plans are fluid!  
><strong>_


	4. The Magical World

_**Whoa, it's been practically two months since I published the last chapter. My bad, everyone. I had a lot of writer's block and trouble with motivation while writing this chapter, not to mention the job, vacation, and family things that took up so much of my time this summer. That's not an excuse, but I'm sorry that it's kept you waiting. There are a lot of people who have been reviewing, following, and favoriting this story. I think a get an email every day where someone has done one of those three things, so I'm just going to say thank you all. You're wonderful. I hope that I didn't disappoint you all with this chapter.**_

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><p>"Harry, are you sure that this is the place?" I asked doubtfully, my eyes surveying the building in front of me. He had told me that our destination would be disguised, but I didn't quite think it would look like this.<p>

What Harry had described to me as the gateway between the wizarding world and muggle London turned out to be a dilapidated shop on Charing Cross Road. It was a tiny little place wedged between a record store and a bookshop, with a front window display so coated in dust that I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. There was a sign over the window, but the words had faded so that they were illegible. The paint on the door was chipped and peeling, so that the only thing about the shop that seemed to be in a decent condition was the doorknob. It was, I decided, almost suspiciously shiny.

"Yeah, this is it," Harry said. While I had been staring at the shop, he had been paying the cabbie, but he stepped around the back of the cab calmly. He smiled a little as he looked at the shop, which I found simply astounding. It wasn't really a place worth smiling at. "Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron, London's most popular wizarding pub."

I looked up at him. He looked like he was being sincere, but this place looked like no pub that I had ever seen. I didn't know if I really wanted to enter it. In fact, everything in my body seemed to be telling me not to go inside, that this was not a place for me. At a pointed look from Harry, I stepped over to the door and placed my hand on the doorknob. Instantly, the breath seemed to disappear from my lungs.

I jerked my hand away and gasped.

"What? What's wrong?" Harry demanded, looked around for some kind of threat. When I didn't respond, he seemed to realize what was happening. "Oh, yeah. The muggle repelling charms. Sorry, Kate, I forgot all about those. They put them up so that muggles won't just walk in on accident. Here, let me get that for you..."

He opened the door, and I, with some doubts, stepped inside the building. Instantly, it transformed from a dusty shop into a perfectly normal-looking pub (albeit a dark and shabby one). We walked past a bar, a staircase, and numerous tables (which I seemed inclined to bump into along the way). Little groups of people chatted idly, holding drinks in their hands. In one far corner, a drunk little man was trying to get his companions to sing a drinking song with him, but his words were not comprehensible. Harry pointed me past all of this and to a back door, which opened to reveal a little courtyard. I paused uncertainly in front of the door, but Harry waved me through impatiently.

Silently, Harry pulled his wand from his pocket and began to tap it on the back well of the courtyard. Then, there was a grinding sound as the bricks rearranged themselves to form a sort of doorway. I gaped, open-mouthed, at the sight in front of me, while Harry gave me an amused look.

"Are you coming?" he asked. His eyebrows were arched. He looked like he felt very superior at the moment. I didn't even care; I nodded mutely and followed him out of the courtyard and into the magical world.

I had never in my entire life loved a place like I like I did Diagon Alley in just those first few seconds that I had been there. As I followed Harry through the crowd, I must have been gawking. It was something out of a Disney film or a children's book, a surreal street lined with shop after shop that all sold the most unusual wares. The people that waded in and out of the stores, oblivious to the pouring rain, were dressed in robes in every color of the rainbow. There was a store that seemed to be a broomstick shop, and another devoted entirely to quills, inks, and parchment in a variety of unusual shades and designs. There were a handful of places that seemed to sell robes, and pet shops that prominently featured owls. It took all of my self-control not to immediately run to the old fashioned ice-cream parlor or the book shop that advertised spellbooks in the front window.

Some of these places sold things that I couldn't even begin to identify, strange instruments made of metal or glass and animal parts and foreign herbs displayed in shop windows. I felt like I could walk up and down that street for the rest of my life and never understand all of the things that I saw.

"Are we really in London?" I wondered aloud, turning to Harry with an awe-struck expression. He nodded with a tiny smile on his lips. "I can't believe it. Are you sure that we aren't in Narnia or Wonderland or something like that?"

"Of course not. Those places aren't real, Kate," Harry informed me, gesturing all around him. He seemed to be having fun altering my perception of reality, so good on him. "This place? Diagon Alley? This is real."

I nodded my agreement and turned away, entranced by a shop display close by that featured a miniature fireworks display that raged in front of the window, sparks in all different colors that formed a huge variety of shapes. Through the glass, I could hear them whistling and popping, but they didn't stray from the display into the rest of the shop, which seemed to be just as wildly colorful. Wondering what kind of place it was, I looked up at the overhead sign, which read Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes; above it, there was a picture of an identical pair of redheaded boys with cheeky grins and top hats.

"So this is the plan," I heard Harry say, though I wasn't really paying attention to him at the moment, as I was too busy staring at the fireworks. They were much more interesting. "We're going to start at Madam Malkin's, which is the best place to get robes in the alley, because it'll close soon. After that, we'll get you a pair of shoes and the other things that you think you need. I was planning to meet friends at the pub for dinner tonight, and I think it would be best if we went ahead and ate with them. We're already here. Kreacher won't have anything ready."

"Sounds fine," I agreed, still focused on the window display. I was wondering how much the fireworks cost, and if they would be a good present for my brother's birthday. We weren't allowed to shoot them off in Little Whinging, but we had relatives in the country that would let us. It was then that I realized that my purse was probably sitting in an alley, along with all my money, personal items, and mobile.

Hell.

Harry ushered me away from the fireworks and into a shop nearby: Madam Malkin's Robes for all Occasions. It wasn't very busy at the moment, except for a pair of young girls who were looking over a selection of fabrics. The proprietor, who I assumed was Madam Malkin, was a white-haired, squat woman who looked up immediately when Harry and I walked through the door. She grinned broadly and walked over to us, leaving the other customers alone.

"Mr. Potter! It's an honor, as always," she greeted warmly, beaming up at Harry, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Who is your friend, and what can I do for the two of you today?"

"This is Kate F-..." Harry began, before hastily backtracking. "This is Kate, my new assistant. I got recruited into taking her shopping."

"Oh, and how's that?" the woman said, intrigued. Harry, I thought suddenly, would be a celebrity among the magical world. After all, he had killed the man who was basically the wizarding version of Hitler. Everyone would be interested in what he was doing, who he was with, and where he was going. I couldn't tell if this was a good thing or not.

Harry shrugged. "She's a Squib. Doesn't own any proper robes, and she can't exactly where her muggle clothes to work at Auror Headquarters. I thought I would help her out with that."

Um, what am I exactly? I wanted to ask. I didn't know exactly what a Squib was, so I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not, but I didn't think I liked being known as Harry's assistant.

"Oh, dear," Madam Malkin said, smiling at me in turn. She seemed so friendly that I couldn't help but smile back. "Well, we can fix that, can't we? Come along, dear, we'll get your measurements..."

She had me stand on a little stool while a magical tape measure floated around me, which measured me in every direction possible while the madam wrote down the numbers hastily. When that was through with, she directed me towards a rack of ready-made robes in the correct size. She talked cheerfully the entire time ("We rarely custom-fit casual robes anymore, you know. Now, that's mostly for the Hogwarts students and dress robes. Why, when I first opened...") and helped me select four sets of robes that she thought would be the most flattering on me. One was a pretty sky blue color, one was a springy green, one was a chocolate brown, and the last was a much more dramatic purple. Once they were chosen, Harry counted a number of coins out from a little pouch and Madam Malkin put the robes in a little shopping bag that seemed deceptively small for the amount of clothing inside. She handed me the bag and sent us on our way from the shop with a cheerful little smile.

"Why do witches and wizards wear robes?" I wondered aloud, swinging the bag idly as we walked to the next shop. "Muggle clothes are more practical. Robes seem like they would get in the way of everything, and they just aren't as versatile as a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt. Why bother with them at all?"

Harry shrugged. "Tradition, I guess. The wizarding world doesn't really care much for change."

I almost scoffed at that answer. Tradition was well and good, but it simply didn't seem practical to wear robes all of the time. As a whole, wizards didn't seem to have many thoughts to practicality. They were a people who didn't use automobiles, wore long and heavy robes, and had a different currency than the rest of the country. Only a handful of people in Diagon Alley seemed to wear clothes like the ones I was used to seeing, and most of them seemed to be in young. Technology that I had always taken advantage of was not yet mainstream in the magical community, and some devices still hadn't been made compatible with magic. Perhaps they had magic to simplify things for them, but it seemed strange to rely so much on what seemed to be a fickle ability.

There were still more shops to go in and more things that I would need to achieve some semblance of normalcy: shoes, pajamas, undergarments, and toiletries. Harry mostly left me in the care of the shop assistants at the shops, usually heading discreetly to a corner of the shop or finding a chair to sit in while I tried something on. He said little to nothing about the things that I picked and never commented on the price of anything. He honestly didn't seem to care about the money, handing over coins without any argument at each shop.

After we finished all of the shopping, we stood in front of the shoe shop (where boots and sandal floated in midair, and occasionally whacked shoppers in the head if they weren't careful) awkwardly, going over an unwritten checklist of the things Harry seemed to think that I would need.

"Are you sure that you don't need anything else?" he asked me for the second time. Apparently, he had a desire for me to spend more of his money than I already had.

"Yes," I said, a little bit agitated. I didn't feel good about not being about to pay for my own things, and so I had deliberately limited myself to what I needed and didn't need. Once Harry had explained the monetary system, I had taken care to buy things that were a good price. I would have thought he would appreciate my efforts, but it seemed that he didn't.

He checked his watch and nodded. "Fine."

We went back to the Leaky Cauldron, where Harry paused and scanned the room for a moment before he took off for a corner table with renewed speed and enthusiasm. It was a large table, obviously meant for a larger group of people, but it was occupied solely by one young woman with her head buried in a book. Her hair was brown, a few shades lighter than my own; she looked remarkably similar to the brunette in Harry's photo album, though she seemed to have tamed her hair and grown into her teeth since many of those pictures were taken. She looked up as we came closer and smiled at Harry before giving me a very thorough once-over.

"Harry, I didn't think that you would make it," she said, closing her book with a little thud. She was talking to Harry, but she was still scrutinizing me, as if I were a puzzle she couldn't quite figure out. "You know, given the situation..."

Is that all that everyone is going to call this? A situation? I thought in annoyance, until the thought crossed my mind that I hadn't seen this woman at the Auror Office earlier. How exactly would she know about my situation? I looked uncertainly at Harry, but he hardly seemed to be worried about it. In fact, he was pulling out the chair across from her and sitting down.

"We were in Diagon Alley to get Kate some things, and I thought that we should just come on out. I already told Kreacher that I was going out tonight, and he won't be prepared to cook for both of us. " He shrugged and looked sideways at me, and I realized that I was still standing up. I took the seat next to Harry's and smiled awkwardly at the woman.

"So, you must be Kate Foster," the brunette said, not unkindly. She smiled at me and extended her hand across the table. "My name is Hermione Granger. It's nice to meet you."

The name was faintly familiar, like something I had heard or read years ago. Probably because that's exactly what it was. I remembered, suddenly, that Harry had occasionally mentioned his best friends Ron and Hermione. Since this was Hermione, and she had appeared in so many photos with the ginger from earlier, I assumed that the Auror was Ron. I also realized that someone – Harry or Ron, maybe Neville – must trust Hermione deeply if she already knew about the situation at hand. That meant that I should probably trust her, too.

"It's nice to meet you, too, Hermione," I said, trying to be sincere. I shook Hermione's hand and gave her a tight smile. "That's an unusual name, you know. I don't think I've ever met another Hermione."

"I'm not surprised. It's not all that common of a name. Hermione was an obscure character in Greek mythology and in Shakespeare," Hermione mentioned offhandedly, stowing her thick book in a satchel sitting on the ground. In my experience, people who mentioned things such as mythology and Shakespeare so offhandedly were either very intelligent or insufferably pretentious, or possibly both.

At that point, the conversation lulled. I was rather happy when Ron and Neville showed up in the pub doorway, both looking more tired but no worse for wear than when we had left them at the Ministry. Neville flashed the three of us a terse smile as he took the seat on my other side and said a low greeting, but Ron groaned as he slumped into the seat next to Hermione.

"Harry, mate, why didn't you ever tell me about all of the paperwork an Auror has to do? I never would've signed up for this job if I'd known there would be that much to do!" he complained, running his fingers through his red hair. "Honestly, there are a million better things that we could be working on than writing out reports that no one is going to read! We could be out looking for leads, or trying to figure out the Syndicate's next move, or just about anything besides sitting there in the office!"

Harry and Neville seemed to shrug in unison. "Welcome to the Aurors, mate," Harry said. He sent me a sideways glanced and seemed to realize that I was confused, so he added, "Ron's new to the office. After the war, he went to work with his brother George at the joke shop up the street, but he's come to work at the Ministry. He's going to be Neville's replacement."

"Oh?" I said, raising an eyebrow. Neville was quitting the Auror Office? Huh, he had seemed so good at it.

"Yeah, I'm going to be a professor," Neville said brightly. He sat up a little straighter in his seat and smiled a little. He seemed very proud of himself and excited. "I'm going to teach Herbology at Hogwarts. Er – that's the study of magical plants. Like botany, I guess, except..."

"Magical," I finished for him. He nodded enthusiastically, and I smiled. They might like that I was completely oblivious, but I could follow what they were saying just fine. "That sounds interesting. Congratulations on the new job."

Ron grunted something about the Ministry and paperwork, and in response, Hermione smiled slightly. They were obviously a couple; it was plain from their body language and the way that she kissed him lightly on the cheek. At the touch, he immediately sat up straighter, a red blush spreading from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. He seemed embarrassed by the display of affection but also pleased with himself, too, especially as Hermione laced her fingers through his in the way that only a significant other can. I noticed that there was a modest engagement ring on her finger, displayed prominently as they held hands.

"Is Ginny coming, then?" Harry said after a long moment, breaking the moment of silence easily. I wondered who she was, but then, I didn't really know any of these people, so it didn't make a difference. Obviously, though, she was important to Harry, because her attendance seemed very important to him.

Neville shook his head. "Nope. Got an owl from her at the office saying that the Harpies are practicing every night this week for their big match against the Tornadoes next week."

"Think we should go on and order? I'm starving," Ron said, looking over at the menu above the bar longingly.

As if on cue, a perky blonde girl about our age walked over to our table and smiled brightly at the five of us. She had a little notepad in her hand, the type that I recognized as a typical waitress notebook for keeping up with orders. All of the others seemed to know her, since they had a nice group greeting, and I found out that her name was Hannah and she had been one of their classmates. Hannah asked us what we would like to drink, which resulted in Ron and Hermione bickering a little about whether he would be getting a firewhiskey or a butterbeer (Hermione won) and if we would like something to eat as well. Once we had placed our orders, Hannah slipped off to place the order and came back with a tray of butterbeer.

"So, the big day's coming up," she said conversationally to Hermione as she handed each of us a bottle.

"Nine days," Ron and Hermione chimed in unison, Hermione with a smile and Ron with a funny little grimace that men usually wore when they talked about getting married.

"I can't believe that it's taken the two of you so long to get married." Hannah shook her head in faux agitation. "I think that most everyone in our year knew that the two of you were meant to be together since first year. Well, everyone except Lavender, that is. It's taken ten years, of course, but it turns out that we were right all along. Your wedding is going to be the must attend event of the whole year, you know. You couldn't pay me to miss it."

With that, she flounced away, leaving us to our drinks, and I began to think about this tight-knit little community that I had stumbled into. Everyone seemed to know each other, and they all seemed to know each other well. As I watched my companions take and joke lightly, it occurred to me that they were close. They were close in a way that I could never be a part of, and I wasn't even sure that I would ever understand it.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

><p>Someone was knocking on the bedroom door, and that was a problem because I didn't want to be woken up. I groaned and rolled over in bed, pulling the pillow over my head in an attempt to drown out the noise. This bed was comfortable almost to the point of being magical. It was sort of an ironic thought, given that I was in a wizard's spare bedroom and it was entirely possible that the bed was magical, but at the moment I was too focused on not being awake that I didn't spare a moment to think about irony. The night before, I had tossed and turned in the bed for hours thinking about everything that had happened. It seemed like I had only just gone to sleep when someone started knocking on the door.<p>

The door knob clicked, and I realized that whoever was outside of the door was coming in. I did not want Harry to come into this bedroom this early in the morning, because then he would see me in my new and scanty pajamas and my wild hair. I grew up as the oldest of three children, with a tenacious stepmother, and I currently shared a flat with two roommates. I was used to people trying to come into my room at the most inopportune moments. Therefore, I did exactly what I was used to doing when my brother or sister or roommates tried to wake me up.

"Go away, Harry!" I exclaimed, sitting up abruptly and hurling the pillow at the door. I watched it sail through the air and collide with the person standing in the doorway, causing him to topple over. That person was not Harry.

I wasn't sure if it was a person at all. It made a little groaning sound, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed and went to have a closer look. Lying on the floor was a wrinkly little creature not much taller than my legs, with a snout-like nose, bulging, blood-shot eyes, and bat-like ears with long white hair sticking out. It had two legs and two arms, and it wore a knotted piece of cloth vaguely resembling a diaper and a bright gold locket around its neck. From the creature's appearance, I assumed it was male and maybe old.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry," I murmured, barely able to stop myself from blurting out that I had never seen a creature like this before. Hesitatingly, I offered him my hand to pull him to his feet. "I thought you were Harry. Who...Who are you?"

"The muggle doesn't know who Kreacher is!" he said in a creaking, high-pitched voice. The creature sat up and waved away my hand, laughing unpleasantly as he slowly rose to his feet. "Kreacher is Master Harry's house-elf. Master Harry sent Kreacher to wake up the muggle for breakfast." He looked at my startled, uncertain expression and smiled the way that an unpleasant old man might smile. "The girl is only a muggle, doesn't know about house-elves..."

"You're right, I don't know anything about house-elves," I agreed, a little bit stunned. I would not be able to go to sleep after this. "So, you're the Kreacher who does Harry's cooking and cleaning, right?"

Before Kreacher could answer, Harry himself turned down the hallway wearing his Auror uniform. "Good, Kate's up. I was wondering what all the racket was about." His eyes lingered on me for a moment too long, making me remember that the pajamas I was wearing (while cute and the current fashion amongst witches were a bit scantier than I would have preferred). I crossed my arms over my chest defensively as he continued. "Listen, you ought to hurry up and get dressed. Kreacher's made a great breakfast, so whenever you're ready, you should come and eat. We don't have a lot of time before we need to be at the office."

I would have been happy to do that if they would only leave. I gave them both a pointed look, which Harry took to mean that I wanted him gone. He shut the door, and I walked over to the wardrobe to select my wardrobe for the day. I pulled out the green set of robes and a pair of shoes Harry had purchased for me the day before and changed quickly, before heading into the kitchen to have breakfast.

There was a wonderful spread in the kitchen, but I wasn't very hungry, so I grabbed a two slices of toast and slathered them in marmalade. Harry was sitting at the kitchen table already, pouring over a newspaper called the Daily Prophet that I could only assume was the popular wizarding paper. The front page headline was The Crucible Syndicate Strikes Again; under it were the words Aurors flounder in attempts to Catch Syndicate. I ate my toast wordlessly, and watching Harry as he occasionally turned the pages of the paper. When he did, I would get a glimpse of his frowning face.

When I was done eating, I barricaded myself in Harry's bathroom to get ready for work. Once my hair was tamed, my teeth were brushed, and I had put on the little bit of make-up, I opened the door to let Harry finish up getting ready. He ran a comb through his black hair (a futile effort, really) and then brushed his teeth, which took him a lot less time. He found me back in the kitchen, where I was watching Kreacher clean up the breakfast dishes.

"We're going to Apparate today," Harry informed me as he slid a house key into one of the hidden pockets of his robe. I nodded absently, watching Kreacher as he carried a stack of plates and pans as tall as he was to the sink. When I had offered to help him clean up, he had seemed mortally offended, and now I knew that he really didn't need help with anything. "Is that alright?"

"Of course it is," I mumbled, even though it really wasn't. I let him grab onto the sleeve of my robes, and suddenly I was no longer in the kitchen – I was in a grimy little bathroom in an unknown location.

Five minutes and two toilet flushes later, Harry and I waded through a sea of people to one of the Ministry of Magic's many lifts. The building itself was magnificent, with marble floors and a fountain-sporting Atrium where we entered, but I was shuffled immediately to the far end of the Atrium without getting a good look at anything, so that we could catch a lift to Harry's office. It was astounding to me that a place with twenty lifts couldn't possibly have one available on this floor, yet as I opened my mouth to say something about it to Harry, one jutted to a stop ten feet away from where we were standing. It came so fast that I wouldn't have been able to process its arrival on my own, because from the moment its doors opened, people started to pour inside. Harry, resolute and professional, guided me quickly into the elevator with one hand on my elbow.

"Is it like this every day?" I asked, smoothered against the side of the elevator as more people filed in. There were easily a dozen people in the elevator, though one of the others looked like an attendant of some kind.

Harry smiled. "No. It's usually worse."

Well, wasn't that wonderful?

The doors were beginning to creak to a close when one more man managed to slide right in between them, squeezing into the space that separated me from the door with a victorious grin. At first, I thought it was Neville, because he had almost the same hair color and build and seemed to be the same age. I was wrong. While this man had sand-colored hair, Neville's was more firmly on the blond spectrum. His eyes were blue, not brown, and his face was freckly. Also, the two of them looked nothing alike.

"Harry," the man greeted, grinning like a fox at Harry. He had a distinct Irish accent, the kind that made me think of all sorts of culturally stereotypical things. He looked at me briefly out of the corner of his eye, but then he went right back to focusing on Harry. "Alright, mate? I haven't seen you around in a while."

"Been a bit busy lately, Seamus," Harry said, but he was wearing a sociable expression similar to the one that he wore around Ron, Hermione, and Neville, if slightly more reserved. They were friendly with each other, but they weren't exactly best friends.

"Oh, yeah. I bet they've been working you like a house-elf on the Syndicate case." He nodded a little and paused in his speech. When he opened his mouth again, he seemed considerably less cheerful, but far from as uncomfortable as I would have thought. "It's a crazy world, isn't it? We can't even go ten years without some lunatics dressing up and trying to murder everyone."

The lift jolted to a stop, doors opening to a new floor. A voice came on over a hidden speaker, announcing that we were now stopping on the seventh floor, which was home to the Department of Magical Games and Sports and housed the offices of the British and Irish Quidditch Headquarters, the Official Gobstones Club, and the Ludicrous Patents Office. One older man stepped out, and the door closed to a view of him walking down a cubicle-lined hallway.

Harry took this as a reminder that I might need to know what floor we were actually going to, and turned to me. "The Ministry of Magic building is actually located underground, and we'll be rising almost to the top to get to the Auror Headquarters. In case you get lost around here, just know that Headquarters is on Level Two. Got it?" I nodded to show that, yes, I did get it. "Good."

"Oh, so the Auror Office has gotten a new member," Seamus said jauntily as the lift stopped on the next floor. He looked me over from head to toe, curiosity plain in his eyes. Curiosity, yes, but was it my imagination that I saw something else there two?

Whatever I thought I saw, it made me pause before I could answer. "Well, not exactly," I muttered, at a loss for words. It occurred to me that I hadn't actually heard my cover story, which was bound to make this interesting. I tried to look discreetly to Harry for help.

"Kate here is the Auror Office's new secretary," he offered. Yesterday, I was an assistant; today I was a secretary. It was an upgrade, yes, but still not as significant of one as I would have liked. "Temporarily, of course. With everything that's happened so far, the higher ups have decided that we can't waste time and resources on minor details like paperwork."

I managed a smile for Seamus, one that he seemed eager to match. "Yes, I'm here until the Crucible Syndicate case is closed," I elaborated, going with the flow. "I've never been to the Ministry before, you know, so Harry... though I guess I should call him Mr. Potter here, shouldn't I?... has kindly agreed to help me get used to things. We're old acquaintances." The moment I said it, I knew that I shouldn't have. Would Seamus be curious? Would anyone else in the lift notice that? Fortunately for me, Seamus didn't seem to notice anything odd about my comments.

While I was rambling, we had passed two floors, putting us on Level Four, and we were going up. The lift had begun to clear out, so that the only people besides Harry, Seamus, and me were the attendant and two men intent on their own conversation about something having to do with the Minister.

Seamus stuck out his hand for me to shake and pumped my arm once with a grin on his face. "I'm Seamus Finnigan, from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. It was nice to meet you." The lift stopped again, announcing that we were now on Level Three, headquarters to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. "Well, this is my stop. I'll be seeing you around, then. Goodbye, Kate." He nodded at Harry, and then he was gone from the lift.

"Did I do alright?" I asked Harry in a low voice, looking over at the others in our compartment. The attendant was leafing through some magazine called The Quibbler, turning it upside down suddenly and looking at it interestingly. The two men in the corner were still having an intense discussion. They seemed to be having a disagreement, which I thought was good because it kept them from paying much attention to what we were saying.

"You did fine," he assured me, an odd expression on his face. Had I really done fine, or had I said the wrong thing? He shook his head a little, as if to shake off an unwanted thought, and looked over at the three men, too. Harry leaned in closer to me, and I was suddenly aware of how fast the lift was moving to the next floor. When he spoke again, I was sure that no one else would be able to hear these words. "The key to going undercover is to keep it simple, and tell as much of the truth as possible. If anyone asks, you are Kate Hart, temporary secretary to the Auror Office. You grew up in Little Whinging, where the two of us met. You are a squib, and this is a temporary job to help pay your way through university. Other than that, use your best instinct, but remember what you tell people. Understand?"

"Yes," I said in a squeaky little voice as the lift stopped and its doors began to creak open.

"_You have now reached Basement Level Two, home to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including Auror Headquarters and Wizengamot Administration Services. Have a pleasant day._"

I really hoped that I would, but it was starting to seem doubtful.


End file.
